December 10

This was the sky as I was leaving the hospital tonight. Which didn't look all that different from the sky as I was arriving.

My first day on is always long. My whole list is filled with new patients I have to learn about before I can really know what they need. Since it's also always on a Friday, there is also a little more of a push to make sure everyone gets back to their nursing home or the rehab hospital otherwise the patient will not be able to leave until Monday.

Working in the winter is also more depressing since I arrive at and leave the hospital while it's still dark. Today didn't start out well. One of the first things I did was tell a patient I had just met that she had metastatic melanoma. She's just 59. The same age as my dad.

5 days ago she was healthy, living her normal life. Then she had a seizure and then we found the tumors and now she's dying of cancer.

There are some things in medicine I don't think I'll ever get used to.
That is one of them.

Thankfully, after my long, sad day, I came home to see a little boy who did his arm-flapping happy dance when he saw me. To a husband who was feeding him bits of roasted sweet potato who was also very happy to see me. (No arm-flapping from him, though) The day finally got better.

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